Google Music to launch soon, with Google+ integration and song purchasing

Jake Smith

Wall Street Journal is reporting that Google will launch a new music download store that will interconnect with Google Plus in the next two weeks. Users will have the ability to buy songs for 99-cents each, after listening to it once for free.

The new music store will obviously be based off of Music Beta, which has allowed users to upload 20,000 songs for free as a storage locker. Music Beta doesn’t feature any song purchasing whatsoever. Presumably, when launched next week, Music Beta will turn into Google Music.

Google will interconnect Music with Google+. Users can share tracks with their circles, who can then play the song once for free and then purchase it after for 99-cents, reports WSJ. Interestingly, there was no mention of Music during the Ice Cream Sandwich launch, but we assume some more will be announced on that front..

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Google Reader to get redesign and Google+ integration next week

Jake Smith

Google just announced on their Reader blog this afternoon, that Google Reader will be receiving an updated redesign to match many other products next week. When it comes to social features that Reader already has, Google will be removing friending, following, and shared links and implementing Google+ features instead.

The new redesign will most likely look like the redesign we’ve already seen across Mail, Docs, Maps, and more. Personally, I welcome the new theme, because currently I don’t think Reader looks good. I also like Google’s efforts to make their products look better.

Google+ coming to Google Apps “in a number of days”

Jake Smith

Google’s Co-Founder Sergey Brin and VP of Product Vic Gundotra were just on stage at the Web 2.0 Summit taking questions from the audience. One question that has been sitting in the back of our minds that was asked is when Google+ will be available for Apps users. Gundotra answered that Google+ will be available for Apps users “in a number of days.”Gundotra also said that brand pages are on their way soon too, but not as quickly as Google+ for Apps users.

Gundotra said that Google+ wasn’t initially available for Apps users because of the technology changes that are needed. Gundotra didn’t think Google+ was going to take off so fast, and that they were going to put Google+ in the hands of Apps users faster.

Google shutting down Buzz in a few weeks to focus on Google+, more products later this year

Jake Smith

Google has just announced on their blog that they will be shutting down Google Buzz in a few weeks. Users will be able to take out their data from Buzz with Google Takeout, but it will still be viewable on their Google Profile.

In a few weeks we’ll shut down Google Buzz and the Buzz API, and focus instead on Google+. While people obviously won’t be able to create new posts after that, they will be able to view their existing content on their Google Profile, and download it using Google Takeout.

Google also announced a slew of other products that will be closed in January of 2012, including Code Search, Jaiku, and iGoogle’s social features.

So what’s up with all of these product closures? As explained before, and also in yesterday’s earnings call, Google is trying to put more focus around core products. In today’s case it looks like these products will allow the Google team to focus more on Google+. I think we’re all fine with that, right?

Google+ rolls out real-time search and improved hashtags

Jake Smith

Google’s VP of Engineering Vic Gundotra just announced on Google+ this afternoon that Google+ is now rolling out real-time search and improved hashtags. Gundotra explains in the video above, and in his post:

Real-time search
Now when you search in Google+, you’ll see a message about new posts the instant they’re available. If you click on this message, or select “Most recent”, then relevant posts will start appearing in real-time.

Improved hashtag support
People have long used hashtags to mark their posts with certain topics — just ask our very own +Chris Messina, hashtag inventor. You don’t have to use hashtags on Google+ (search works fine without them), but when you do, we’ll automatically link to search results.

Google takes out full page in New York Times to promote Hangouts

Jake Smith

In attempt to grow their young social network, Google has taken out a full page ad in the traditional print version of the New York Times promoting Google+ Hangouts. Search Engine Land posted the photo above, where Google talks about the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu hosting a Hangout last week in their ad. Google strikes out parts to explain how they came to the rescue when the Dalai Lama wasn’t granted a visa to visit South Africa.

Google’s decision to take out a full ad was definitely smart. Yesterday numbers were published by an analyst showing how much of Google+’s traffic is beginning to decline, but maybe spreading the social network to a different set of people will help. That ad is great and all, but why didn’t Google use some images to catch the eye?